Federal Education Policy and the States, 1945-2009

The George W. Bush Years: NCLB - Politics of Enactment

The final
provisions of NCLB
took the Congress and administration a year to finalize. As noted
earlier, President Bush initially presented his proposal to Republican
majorities of both the Senate and House. In June 2001, however,
Senator Jim Jeffords, a Republican from Vermont, changed his affiliation
to Independent and joined the Democrats in organizing a new Senate
majority. Jeffords had been chair of the Senate committee with jurisdiction
over education, but the new chair was Senator Edward Kennedy from
Massachusetts. From that point on, the legislation had to be developed
on a bipartisan basis, requiring resolution of highly complex political
positions. There were two groups of Democrats, referred to as "new"
and "old," and two groups of Republicans, moderates and
conservatives (with views carried over from the Contract for America
of 1995).

Agreement on the bill
was reached because the president persuaded his party of the need
to establish Republican leadership in education, where Democrats
had generally held that reputation. A major bill would provide a
sound Republican plank for the election platforms of 2002 and 2004.
The emphasis on accountability overrode the conservatives' dislike
of federal intervention and more spending. Democrats, many of whom
at first resisted efforts to help the president with an "education
win," chose to cooperate for three reasons. (1) The bill was
based on the concepts of their own legislation, IASA
and ESEA. (2) The president strongly threatened to scuttle the ESEA
reauthorization and cut education funds if there was no new federal
initiative. Democrats saw this bill as the only way to persuade
the administration to increase federal education appropriations.
(3) In the Senate, "old" Democrats knew that some "new"
Democrats were prepared to join the Republicans to pass a reform
package that would have included vouchers for private school students
and, therefore, made the bill appear as a complete Republican victory.
The "old" Democrats, therefore, took control of negotiations
with the president and held the overall party position together
by working aggressively with their House counterparts, eventually
realizing a bipartisan reform bill focused particularly on low-achieving
students, but without vouchers. In the end, both parties, even with
grave doubts about many provisions, had stronger reasons-both substantive
and political-to support NCLB than to oppose it. After protracted
negotiations, Congress enacted the No Child Left Behind Act (P.L.
107-110, a reauthorization of the ESEA) with strong, bipartisan
support: it passed in the House on a vote of 381 to 41 and in the
Senate on a vote of 87 to 10.